


Nymphaea caerulea

by FromAnonymousToZ



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: A weird sort of culty town full of mostly witches but y'know, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Enoch manages to be more ominous than he is in cannon, I promise I didnt have the lotus eater myth in mind when I started writing but it fit so well, Lotus Eaters, M/M, Role Reversal, Temptation, The Beast has a town, You can thank an anon on tumblr for this one, lotuses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: The two forests clash, one twisted with dark marred bark, cold winters, and thick frost, the other caught in the throes of the harvest, filled with green and fruit and life.Enoch tempts.The Beast protects.And a witch-pup is caught in the middle.
Relationships: The Beast/Enoch (Over the Garden Wall)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Nymphaea caerulea

**Author's Note:**

> Interested in the origin of this story? It was requested [here](https://doyouknowhowtowaltz.tumblr.com/) at my tumblr! Feel free to drop by and if you have a question or request go right ahead and drop it in my ask box!

Wrapped in the embrace of a copse of twisted, agony-marred trees, dappled with brittle gray leaves, is a small town.

The houses are ramshackle, with twisted dark vines creeping up along the houses. Their window panes are caked with frost and have thin spiderweb cracks running up them. Their roofs lopsided and sag in the cold. Cracked cobblestone roads line the paths, occasional sickly trees pushing up through the stones, giving the impression that the town had been left to languish as the forest reclaimed it. 

Despite the town's dreary appearance, it's packed to the brim with people, moving between the trees and the houses, laughing, and tossing conversations back and forth. They sit in homemade market stalls exchanging goods and talking.

The town reeks of magic, the folks inside composed mostly of witches, witch-pups, warlocks, and wizards. Among them are a few scattered humans, sparse but still present. 

It seems an awfully strange place to choose to live, considering how the crops came up twisted and gray- though relatively plentiful. The winters were cold and harsh, and the frost clung all year round. The nights were long, untouched by summer days. 

Along its borders, a verdant forest springs up. Healthy green leaves line the forest, the trees ripe with glowing fruit, so heavy with produce they groan beneath its weight. Tangled bushes with plump berries line the edge of the woods. 

Tempting apples glow in the trees, citruses profuse their sweet perfumes through the air, mouth-wateringly delicious. Root vegetables push up through the ground, and game animals prance without a care through the wood, fat and plump.

The two forests clash, one twisted with dark marred bark, cold winters, and thick frost, the other caught in the throes of the harvest, filled with green and fruit and life. 

And just upon the crux of the two, nestled in the dark, cold forest, is the town. 

A young man, a witch-pup, clings to his bow tightly, holding it close to his chest. He trembles like a leaf in a strong wind, walking the border between the two worlds, trying to keep his eyes averted from the luscious trees and fruit, polished to a sheen, becoming him. 

His mouth waters when his eyes flick to the land of plenty, but he stubbornly refuses to cross the threshold between worlds to eat of that fruit, instead of trying to keep his gaze fixed on the cold, damp forest that is his home. 

“Would it be so bad?” A warm voice startles him, and he jumps, a yelp escaping him even as he swung, bowstrung, and pulled taught to face the speaker. 

A cat, a thing of shadow really, with glowing golden eyes reclines nestled between fat green leaves, a mouse pinned under one of its paws. 

The witch-pup swallows. 

He’s heard rumors. 

They’ve all heard rumors about the creature that governs these woods. 

“Come now, lad,” The cat purrs. “Would it be so bad to succumb to your hunger for just a taste?”

The boy stares silently. His bow pulled taught. Despite his tremors, his aim is steady.

“What's wrong?” The cat asks, eyes glittering. “Cat got your tongue?” 

The boy swallows thickly. 

“I’m not scared of you.” The witch-pup says, voice trembling. “I know what you are.”

“Well, of course, you do!” The cat exclaims jovially, “I’m a cat.”

The witch-pup grits his teeth. 

“I know what happens to the people who eat from your trees.” 

“ _ My _ trees? Oh, lad, you must be mistaken, they’re not my trees, simply trees, putting out fruit for hungry men.” 

The cat’s tail flicks coyly. 

“You’re a hungry man, aren't you lad?” 

“You can't tempt me, cat.” The witch-pup grits out between his teeth. 

“Oh, you poor dear,” The cat coos. “So hungry and cold, toiling away, come now, there's plenty to be eaten you need not labor so,” 

The boy’s eyes flick up to the oranges dappling the tree's green boughs above the cat. They glow in the light. 

“No one will mind if you take what you need, dear,” The cat reassures. “No one wants you going hungry.” 

The boy’s concave stomach rumbles, and his grip on his bow relaxes, slack growing in its string. 

He takes a small half step forward, eyes fixed on the entrancing fruit tree. 

“No one will mind if I take just one.” He mutters, and the cat laughs. 

“Why stop at one, gather an armful, go back and fetch a basket, feed your whole family. There's plenty to go around. We want for nothing on this side, and we are more than willing to share.”

The witch-pup takes another half step forward, his bow falling from his hand as he starts to reach out. 

A dark shadow descends between them, looming high above both cat and witch-pup. It knocks the boy back, shielding him from the allure of food and the cat’s gilded gaze. 

“Meddlesome cat.” The shadow’s voice rumbles, anger turning his words into sharp-edged daggers. “You can’t leave well enough alone.” 

The boy stares up from the ground at the back of his savior, the dark silhouette who’s branching antlers stand sheer against the verdant green forest. 

“Winter warden.” The cat’s voice is silky, and though the witch-pup can no longer see the cat, its voice is still filled with warm humor. “I wondered if you would come to save your little ward before he crossed over. Such a shame too, the poor thing is starving, but no more than anyone else in your little flock, I suppose.”

“Little pup,” The shadow addresses the boy. 

The cat laughs. 

“You spend too much time with wolves, Warden.” 

“Pick up your bow and run, flee to town, do not worry for your hunt. I will see what I can do to bring you food.” 

Numbly the boy nods, hands scrabbling unfeelingly to pick up his bow. He turns and runs, hightailing it back to town. The cold bites at his nose but only drives him onward. His legs ache as the town finally comes into view, the smell of wood smoke finally chasing away the alluring scent of citrus clinging to him. 

He bolts into town, where he is greeted by a multitude of worried witches who draw him into their arms. 

The Winter Warden is true to his word, and that night there's a pheasant, neck snapped, laying on their doorstep with a small collection of assorted nuts and berries.

* * *

The Beast’s shoulders hunch forward as the boy’s footsteps retreat into the forest, growing fainter with each passing moment.

Thistles sprout up around his feet, brambles blooming with thorns as he glowers at the cat.

The cat huffs. 

“I simply don't see how you do it.” Its tail sweeps. “How do you inspire such loyalty in them when they are so hungry and cold? When their lives ultimately lead up to becoming yet another tree in your forest, another spark in your lantern?” 

“Simply.” The Beast murmurs. “I provide for them, and I protect them from the likes of you.” 

“Come now,” The cat croons, eyes sparking with fond mischief. “You say it as if my goal is not benevolent.” 

“Your goal is only to add to your plethora of satiated corpses.”

The cat shrugs, batting idly at the mouse trapped beneath one of its paws. 

“What can I say, Warden. I like folks contented, dead and alive.” 

“So you feed them nothing but lotuses, contented and happy even as they grow thinner and thinner until they are nothing but bones and then you do it all over again in death.” 

“I wouldn't say that, Old Winter.” The cat licks a stripe down one of his paws. “It's the overfilling of plenty that kills them first, not the starvation.”

The two regard each other. 

“Why have you chosen my town to cull?” The Beast asks. “Surely, there are other towns, with prey that is less well guarded.” 

The cat yawns but does not answer. 

“Is it a plot? An attempt to get at me, cat?”

The cat cocks its head at that. 

“Do you really think I would bother with your little town if I honestly thought I could have you?” The cat asks. “To have instability wrapped up in my plenty, my mouth waters at the thought.” The cat purrs low and sinful.

The cat grins around a mouth of sharp teeth. 

“Why don't you bring me your lantern, Warden, and I’ll show you just how well I can feed that flame of yours.”

The Beast stares impassively at the cat who hums. 

“What I wouldn't give to know what I could do to my domain to make it appealing to you. Short of putting up edeltrees, that is, I can't seem to grow them myself. I have tried.”

The Beast growls. 

“Leave my people alone, Cat.” 

“What will you do to stop me, Beast?” The cat leers. 

“I’ll set fire to your lotus garden; then we’ll see how well it burns.”

The cat huffs, tail sweeping. 

“Alright, Warden, you’ve made your point clear, I’ll steer clear of your town for a few seasons.” 

The cat stands, leaning down to take the mouse by the nape in its teeth, and turns headed back into his garden.

The winter warden watched him go and sighed.

* * *

The winter warden paces the border gloomily, his shadows long, and his eyes dim. 

His lantern is running low. It would be refilled, of course, his little lantern bearer would see to it, but its reserves are low at the moment, and he feels less like a flame and more like smoke.

He walks as thorny brambles sprout and tug at his ankles, the north wind tousling his furs and bounding around him. He hums low and mournful, frost creeping up his legs.

“Mr. Hope?” A voice calls him, high and feminine. 

His head swings to pinpoint the origin of the voice. 

A figure steps forward from the green foliage of the lotus forest. Her bones were covered by hay and vegetables and a dress; her bonnet tucked over hay braids. In her arms, she carries a basket piled high with peaches. 

Beside her walks a man, his own pumpkin face carved into a wide grin, he carried a basket filled with blossoms streaked with black.

He blinks at them. 

“Miss Clara?” He asks hesitantly. 

She laughs. 

“You remembered! I worried you wouldn't.” 

How could he forget the first witch he lost to the cat. 

He fixes his gaze on the other figure. 

“I don't believe you were one of mine.” He murmurs. 

The man’s jack-o-lantern smile seems to grow wider. 

“I’m not. I’m Peters, Georgie Peters. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hope.”

“Likewise.” The Beast drawls. “I do not usually see your kind so close to my border.”

“We come bearing gifts from Enoch.” Miss Clara says, nodding to the peaches cradled in her arms.

He considers them for a long moment. 

“You may leave them at the border.” 

“You won't come fetch them from us?” Miss Clara teases. 

“Of course not,” He replies. “Enoch must work for something, after all.” Mirth tinges his voice, and she laughs. 

She steps forward and places her basket at the edge of his forest. The man, Mr. Peters, is far more hesitant but skirts forward and drops his basket of pale blooms, streaked by dark marks. 

Lotuses. 

Miss Clara makes polite conversation until her companion insists they should return. She waves goodbye, and the Beast nods and watches them leave. 

Only when he can no longer hear their footsteps does he dare collect the baskets. 

In the basket of peaches, there is a simple note. 

_ For the young Witch-pup, some real peaches. _

_ I grew them special instead of simply wrapping them in illusion. _

In the basket of lotuses, a second note lays.

_ And for the Warden, some lotuses. _

_ I may not be able to grow your edelwoods, but I can certainly tempt them into flowering. Hopefully, these edel-lotuses burn as sweet in your lantern as they smell.  _

_ Your faithful friend,  _

_ Enoch _

The Warden stares down at the offerings, eyes burning as blue as lotuses.

* * *

The witch-pup awoke to a basket of peaches the next morning.

For the next two weeks, the smoke from the Beast’s lantern smelled sweet. 

And the edeltrees on the border would frequently bloom with lotuses.

**Author's Note:**

> Interested in the origin of this story? It was requested [here](https://doyouknowhowtowaltz.tumblr.com/) at my tumblr!


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